Coinbase announced the appointment of its first-ever chief compliance officer on July 31. The new member of the ever-expanding Coinbase team, Jeff Horowitz, joins the crypto exchange after spending decades in regulatory and compliance roles at some of the most renowned companies in the US. His appointment comes at a time when Coinbase is making inroads into the mainstream financial services industry through Coinbase Custody and its acquisition of a broker-dealer.Read more...

Despite the risks involved with investing in the still nascent cryptocurrency market, one chief security scientist believes that cryptocurrencies are still “absolutely a good thing” — they’ve just got some work to do.

‘The Trend is Obviously Not Our Friend’

CipherTrace — a company developing forensic tools and services for the Bitcoin, blockchain, and cryptocurrency markets — recently conducted a study which shows that the direct theft of cryptocurrencies is already three times more in 2018 than the entirety of the previous year. The report also suggests that losses may rise to $ 1.5 billion this year. Read more...

In recent regulatory news, U.K. minister, Eddie Hughes has published a report that advocates for the creation of a “Chief Blockchain Officer,” the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority has announced that a number of distributed ledger (DLT) companies have been accepted into cohort 4 of its regulatory sandbox, and Finland’s Central Bank has published a report calling cryptocurrency a “fallacy.”

Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, announced earlier today that it will be bringing former NYSE Chief Information Officer Robert Cornish aboard as its first Chief Technology Officer.

Wall Street Execs Jumping into Digital Currencies

Several top Wall Street executives have left traditional finance for the volatile world of cryptocurrencies, and it seems like that trend is going to continue. The latest to do so is Former NYSE Chief Information Officer Robert Cornish, who has been picked to be Gemini’s first Chief Technology Officer, leading the company’s tech initiatives. Read more...

There is only one question on the mind of cryptocurrency enthusiasts at the moment: Where will Bitcoin go from here? According to one expert trader, the outlook does not look promising this summer.

Cryptocurrency is ‘Vulnerable’

Bitcoin dropped to a new yearly low of roughly $ 5750 before experiencing a rescue bounce of sorts back up to roughly $ 6200. At the time of this writing, Bitcoin is trading at $ 6156 — but Jordan Hiscott, Chief Trader at Ayondo Markets, thinks the worst has yet to come.

Hiscott told Express.co.uk that he expects prices to decline further as the dog days of summer progress, noting: Read more...

In today’s edition of Bitcoin in Brief, “U.S. person” Phil Potter, Chief Strategy Officer at crypto exchange Bitfinex, is departing the company as it pivots away from the United States. In America, the Supreme Court mentions Bitcoin and cowrie shells in the context of money. On Capitol Hill, congressmen have been warned to disclose their crypto holdings, while a Republican Rep. calls for “light touch” ICO regulations.

Felix Hufeld, chief of the German Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), the government’s main financial agency, stated in a speech at a conference held in Berlin that blockchain technology has the potential to turn the traditional finance industry upside down.

Optimistic Long-Term Vision

Despite the recent correction of the cryptocurrency market and the drop in the values of major digital assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum, Hufeld emphasized that the capability of the blockchain in powering decentralized applications “could actually be revolutionary” and added that the elimination of single points of failure allow blockchains to operate as secure and transparent financial networks. Read more...

Following SEC’s announcement which separated both Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) from securities, CBOE’s President said that this could increase the chances of regulators signing off on Ethereum futures.

The Market Rebounds

On June 14th, the SEC officially announced that it won’t consider Bitcoin bitcoin and Ether as securities, thus putting the long wait to its end. Naturally, the market responded immediately.

Despite being in a state of major correction, the overall cryptocurrency market saw gains of almost $ 20bln in just a few hours after the news broke out, marking an increase of almost 7 percent according to CoinMarketCap. Read more...